John Mayer/SRV [Two Rock & Fender]

[JohnMayer]

Greetings. I am looking to see if there is a way to possibly mod my amps, or do minor "upgrades" in the circuit to get tones more reminiscent of SRV and the Two Rock amps played by John Mayer.

I play a 66 Super Reverb and a 65 Bassman Head. I'm going to bring it in to a local tech to do some soldering and "tidy" work. I was gonna see if anyone had suggestions he could do to these amps to get that John Mayer sound. Think the tonal qualities of the video with more headroom, clarity than the traditional super/bassman.

Looking to get info along the lines of circuitry mods, cap/resistor mods, et cetera.

Below is a link to a youtube video of Mayer:


John Mayer -- Two Rock Tone!!! CLICK ME

[Amp Kat]

1/2 of that tone is in the fingers. SRV used a Town & Country Marshall to do most of his recordings. Replacing components in the fender would be a long drawn out process and probably very costly and devalue the circuit. You could achive the same results by using the right stompbox or combination of stomp boxes and effects for much less. However if you persist you may contact Trace at Voodoo Amps and he may mod it for you and you might get someone here willing to tackle it so good luck,

[David Schwab]

SRV also sometimes had a half dozen different amps running simultaneously in different parts of the studio, all mic's up and mixed together.

There was a good interview with him about his tone in GuitarPlayer magazine where he discussed this.

I agree tone is in the fingers. There's the story Eddie Van Halen told about doing a show with Ted Nugent, who wanted to try out Eddie's gear. When he played it he asked how Ed got that tone.. because it was sounding just like Nugent always sounds. Ed said it was in his fingers.

[JohnMayer]

Hmm...

I guess no one recognized the john mayer portion of the question, nor the fact that I never asked for info on extensively modding the circuitry...

Also please check the video clip. If John Mayer plays a Fender vs. a Two Rock vs. a Marshall you'll know its him because the phrasing, and technique is in his fingers. To arbitrarily write off tone as not having a lot to do with equipment is naive on many accounts.

Stomp boxes do not = headroom, so I do not understand this suggestion. If anyone actually works on amps and mods them as well as has knowledge on electronics please read this. thanks

[Chadwick]

stomp boxes and guitar and mods

John Mayer rules and I'll bet those amps sound great. I'll also bet he would kick but through anything. Even that dumb VW commercial with the guitar input through the car stereo.

Anyway to a guitar signal since it is such a low signal, a 9 volt transistor actually has plenty of head room based on the frequency range of the guitar and its relatively tiny signal. But ya pedals can be misused and muddy a signal. Diodes are definatly headroom killers though they certainly have their place in guitar tone world.

Your tube amp technician can go through a miriad of simple mods while you play each mod and let your ears guide you to the tone. I doubt very many players would choose the same mods going after the same artist. In my experience poeple usually just choose louder and brighter.

Start with negative feedback, move to different brands and values of cathode bypass caps, then the amount of filtering on each tube, the type and value of the blocking caps.. Cut or add or change values of high pass caps, definately junk the ceramic and go with the silver micas. You could spend a week just listening to the different midrange and high qualities of Orange drops verses Wimas.

I think those are minor upgrades with major implications though it is all perception.

[misterdontmove]

John Mayer

I wanted nothing to do with him after hearing his droning moaning sticky sweet pop crap all over the radio......then, I saw him on some ridiculous MTV comedy show. I think it was "Chappell's Show". He and John Mayer were going to remote locations and sneaking up on people of different races to see how they reacted to Guitar Music (white people in an office, black people in a barber shop,hispanic people on the street corner, etc). I think he was carrying a tiny little Fender Frontman. It may have even been a battery operated amp (who knows)...but that guy can PLAY! It was the first time MTV actually changed my opinion on an artist for the better!

[Amp Kat]

I guess no one recognized the john mayer portion of the question, nor the fact that I never asked for info on extensively modding the circuitry...

Greetings. I am looking to see if there is a way to possibly mod my amps, or do minor "upgrades" in the circuit to get tones more reminiscent of SRV and the Two Rock amps played by John Mayer.

Sounds like your statement clearly asked to mod the circuitry to get SRV/John Mayer tones to me Mods are mods major / minor, doesn't matter but yours are extensive to get what you want so the answer is no.

[JohnMayer]

Yeah Amp Kat I was asking to get "reminiscent" tones or similar tones from my amps of what mayer now has. You suggested I send it to voodoo amps, what I was really looking for is advice from people with experience doing work on their amps. I wanna see if i can use certain components and values to get more headroom more woody/glassy jangle that mayer has but with my amps...

[Amp Kat]

Ok and yes I've done those mods to get that out of a Fender but as I stated before they are extreme mods. The Fender topology is set up clean and changing Cathode resistors and plate load resistors are not the answer. The topology has to be rewired and part's and complete circuits have to be added all which I can do with the right stompbox in front. Another thing you can try is using the preamp out of another amp to the front of the Fender. Can capture both of those guys and has gain shaping also.

[Slobrain]

Greetings. I am looking to see if there is a way to possibly mod my amps, or do minor "upgrades" in the circuit to get tones more reminiscent of SRV and the Two Rock amps played by John Mayer.

I play a 66 Super Reverb and a 65 Bassman Head. I'm going to bring it in to a local tech to do some soldering and "tidy" work. I was gonna see if anyone had suggestions he could do to these amps to get that John Mayer sound. Think the tonal qualities of the video with more headroom, clarity than the traditional super/bassman.

Looking to get info along the lines of circuitry mods, cap/resistor mods, et cetera.

Below is a link to a youtube video of Mayer:


John Mayer -- Two Rock Tone!!! CLICK ME

John,
keep the two amps stock, then go buy a late 60's or early 70's fender bassman head and send it to Andy Fuchs to mod to a Dumble clone.

The Fuchs amp supposedly sounds like the 2 rocks and all use the Dumble topology. There are Dumble schems floating around the net but two many to tell you exactly the one you want in sound. That would be my advice unless you knew how to mod amps as it isn't that easy a task to take on, plus tone is so subjective to each person.

I've personally change the bassman heads into JCM800s, into modded hi gain amps, Soldano SLO amps and a few others and each sounded good. The bassman is a good head for modding and right now the late 60's and early
70's are still not collectors items as of yet, in saying that give Ebay a few more years and they will become collectable

If you want a medium gain without doing lots of modding , go to your local GC and buy a Digitech Bad monkey pedal as these are the best sounding tube screamer knock offs I've heard in a while and have a smooth overdrive with nice tone. Use this with your fender amps and they can get you close to what you want without spending BIG dollars on mods.

SLO

[Rick Erickson]

Stomp boxes do not = headroom, so I do not understand this suggestion

That clean tone that Mayer gets is classic Strat through a "vintage" type Fender amp. A Twin Reverb, Super Reverb, Pro Reverb or a Deluxe Reverb are all capable of getting that sound. One of my favorite local players uses a newer brown tolex "Vibrolux Reverb" re-issue and gets tone to die for. The equipment can only take you so far. The rest is up to you. Right hand "claw" technique is critical in getting some of the percussive chiming sounds where all the chord tones sound at once. I would guess from the tonality that he's using the combination of middle and neck pickups in his strat. A good set of pickups can help once you have the basics down. Lindy Fralin and Van Vandt make some very good Strat replacements. There are others, but I know that either of these guys can make you a good set because I use them on my own guitars.
As for stomp boxes - I have no headroom issues with the ones I use, nor do any of a number of pro players that I do repairs for and/or jam with regularly. Properly set, an Ibanez TS808 tubescreamer can get a great distortion tone. The trick is to dial in your clean tone first and then set the Tube Screamer's Tone control to where there is as little tonal shift as possible when it is kicked in. I use two TS808 type pedals, one set for a light distortion and one set for full distortion. They work well together. There are other fine pedals out there too, but I know from experience that this setup can get you a "Dumble" (or Two-Rock) type tone at a much cheaper price.

RE

[Steve Conner]

+1 on vintage Fender and Tube Screamer! A Strat or Tele through that will just sound plain awesome. If you can't sound good with that setup, you should make sure the amp is fully working, check to see if you replaced your strings in the last decade, or maybe cut the fingers off your winter gloves

For more "glassy jangle" turn the treble knob up. To increase "woodiness" I guess you would turn the bass up.